The no-nonsense conquest of Florida

MIAMI -- In the end, Florida -- a state considered key to the outcome -- played only a supporting role in the election of the first African-American president of the United States. News that it had backed Barack Obama came long after the cheers started in New York and Chicago.

Yet Florida did shine in a dramatic and unexpected way. How the Obama campaign challenged the people of Florida illustrated a new political movement and suggested how the country will be run in the future.

Serious young men and women working for the Obama campaign -- people who live in places far from here and interrupted their lives and careers for a cause -- helped bring off history last night. They created a historic movement from "the best political campaign in history," as the new president-elect called it.

The unsmiling but effective discipline imposed on local volunteers made the far looser Republican operation in crucial South Florida seem almost homey -- maybe even comical. A political approach stuck in another time.

"Hey, we got an election to win," said Bob Gravitz, an Obama staff member from Washington, D.C., but assigned here. "We do what we have to do."

This was the result of months of repeated "Camp Obamas," the training sessions run by top staff members at which campaign workers were taught details of "how to think like Barack" and to stick to the script -- even if it meant giving up the chance to speak publicly about what they thought of the campaign. Staff members and volunteers alike were carefully trained about what they could -- and could not -- say.

What the staffers did here was impressive. Launching door-to-door get-out-the-vote drives aimed at carefully checked Obama voters. Every volunteer was given a script -- and proposed answers to popular questions.

They provided rides to those needing it. A chart on one campaign office in Palm Beach County listed more volunteer drivers than older voters who needed rides.

Having scores of lawyers on hand who helped iron out problems before they threatened to create embarrassments in a state still suffering from memories of 2000 and that year's uncounted votes.

"To be here if we're needed -- just to show ourselves," said one lawyer who, typically, would not give his name.

It wasn't just a one day effort. It began with voter registration drives in the spring in the primary season -- in Florida like all other states. In New Jersey, for example, more than 500,000 new voters were added -- and similar tallies were achieved here.

Highly trained people -- many of them graduate students from Eastern universities -- descended on contested states two to three months ago. They brought with them the best of printed material and they taught volunteers how to identify likely voters and forget about people they'd never win over. As one volunteer said, "We were told not to waste our time arguing -- just to move on to those who were convinced."

They learned how to take advantage of quirky state voting laws. Because the Obama campaign chose to concentrate on exploiting new early voting procedures, more than 4 million Florida voters cast their ballots even before yesterday -- and, according to exit polls, more than 60 percent of them were cast by Democrats. Likely Obama voters. The McCain voters ran a standard get-out-the-vote campaign -- but only after a decisive percentage of the vote already was out.

"It's probably less intense today than it was over the last few days," said one Obama volunteer. "But this operation has been run like a machine."

The Democratic operation was a stark contrast with a nearly empty Republican phone bank in Pompano Beach with unmanned desks, where four people couldn't handle the calls coming in -- and there weren't that many.

"Oh, we'll have more people showing up," said Catherine Faulkner, the executive director of the Broward County Republican Party. She didn't seem convinced.

There were no voting lines in traditionally strong Republican areas like Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter. That was a sure sign John McCain was in trouble.

Still, the efficiency of the Obama effort may have come with a price. The price was freedom of action.

In one voting precinct in Miami's Little Haiti, for example, two women volunteers said they were prevented from helping local voters the way they wanted to. They said they had to do only what the Obama staffers wanted them to do.

"I know that doesn't seem very much like Obama," the woman said. "But what am I supposed to do? We're under orders."

The complaint was repeated in other areas of South Florida. "The people from Washington are running things," said a campaign volunteer in Boynton Beach.